Sitaram Yechury

Mr. Advani’s articles (Indian Express December 27-28,1992) are a testament of contradictory eloquence. Duplicity and subterfuge characterise the painful attempt to whitewash the BJP’s criminal, violation of law, the shameful capitulation of the assurances that its leaders gave to the highest court and the wanton, pre-planned and rehearsed destruction of the Babri Masjid. In the process he makes a convoluted attempt to establish BJP’s adherence to secularism.

Double talk is a characteristic of the leaders of fascistic parties. Not only do different leaders speak in different voices to deliberately confuse and mislead the people in order to camouflage their real intentions, but the same leader speaks with different tongues in different situations.

Let us take a look at some of the major contradictions in Advani’s argument.

1. Unable to justify by any stretch of verbal acrobatics the demolition of the Babri Masjid Mr. Advani begins by expressing his dejection over what happened on December 6. Such remorse, however, is very short-lived. He immediately goes on to state that the sadness “did not stem from any disenchantment with the Ayodhya movement or with the path the Party had chosen….” And shifting to an aggressive turn he goes on to state that the post-demolition developments ” have reinforced our resolve to pursue the path more vigorously”. And finally by the time he ends his article he makes a fantastic assertion that “the BJP leadership means what it says and says what it means and is not hypocritical like other parties”. Was it not Advani who repeatedly asserted “Mandir vahi banegi”? Was it not Advani who repeatedly exhorted the karsevaks to proceed to Ayodhya to do what they did on December 6? And was it not Advani who in the week preceding December 6 made statements widely contradictory on the actual intention of the kar seva. (See Peoeple’s Democracy, December 20, 1992). Only the events of December 6 have shown the country what the BJP leadership actually meant. All along they had said and solemnly affirmed through affidavits in the highest court that the Babri Masjid will not be destroyed. Did they mean what they said? What they said was meant only to hoodwink the people. In fact to the National Integration Council (NIC) Kalyan Singh had expressly stated: “pending a final solution the government of Uttar Pradesh will hold itself fully responsible for the protection of the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid structure”. (NIC, November 1991). That he resigned only after the complete and final destruction of the Babri Masjid was actually to facilitate the destruction rather than an act of remorse. Advani, thus, once again hoodwinking the people.
2. Expressing sham anguish at the death of over a thousand people in the consequent aftermath Advani is “satisfied” that the deaths “this time has been a contained one”. He proceeds to make a fantastic assertion that these deaths were because of the “stubborn insistence of calling this old structure (which was abandoned by Muslims 56 years back and which for 43 years has been a de-facto temple) a mosque”.

Firstly, no amount of perfidy can obliterate the fact that this was a mosque constructed over four and a half centuries ago in which the Namaz was regularly read. Only on the 23rd of December 1949 idols were surreptitiously placed inside. The Imam who read the last Namaz, Haji Abdul Gaffar is still alive. His son was killed in the carnage following the destruction of the Babri Masjid. Forcing the Muslims to abandon the mosque does not mean its automatic conversion into a de facto temple. If it was a de facto temple, accepting what Advani says, then who has bestowed upon the BJP the right to destroy it. No amount of such technical wrangling can disabuse the fact that the BJP and company destroyed the Babri Masjid deliberately and wantonly for its political purposes.

3. Advani makes a startling statement that the Ayodhya movement is not a political one, “We have never regarded Ayodhya as a ladder to power”. And yet within a course of few lines he proceeds to state that for four decades in Indian politics Jan Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party was “at best a feeble voice of dissent, Ayodhya has enabled our view point to become a formidable challenge”. Recounting the experience of the 1989 and 1991 elections and gloating over the BJP’s emergence as the principal opposition party Advani says:”what has gratified us all along is not merely that our numerical strength in Parliament and state legislatures has been growing at a rapid pace but that acceptance of our ideology in all sections of society at all levels has been growing simultaneously”. Need anything more be said than such a candid expression of the political benefits from the Ayodhya movement? Concluding his article, he calls for seizing the opportunity and to “grab it by the forelock” Advani has exposed to his eagerness to be in the seat of political power at the expense of incendiary communal conflagration.
4. Advani continues to dish out the now too familiar arguments that the prevarication of the courts and the vacillation of the government are responsible for the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Even granting Advani his assumptions, can that by any stretch of imagination absolve either him or the BJP in whose physical presence the act of demolition was undertaken? Hailing the role of the Kalyan Singh government Advani states:”that along with every assurance (of protecting the mosque) there was an invariable addendum; that he (Kalyan Singh) would not use force against the kar sevaks”. This is qualified by an unqualified praise for not using any force. In other words in a situation when the Constitution and the law of the land is openly being violated and all norms of democracy flouted, a state government duly elected under the Constitution can abdicate its responsibility in the name of not using force. These are new set of norms that Advani has set for the running of the governments.
5. In a not too subtle an argument, Advani has mounted the familiar attack on the Muslim League and the latter’s attack on Mahatma Gandhi. There is no doubt that the Muslim League’s communal politics had played havoc withour country. But whatever be its antipathy to Mahatma Gandhi it was not the Muslim League but the RSS that murdered the Mahatma. Advani, by his own admission, was one of those who was arrested following this murder. He was “20 years old at that time and a RSS pracharak in Rajasthan”. He proceeds to state that the commission of inquiry “had exonerated the RSS!” Even a superficial examination of the trial of Godse and the report of the commission of inquiry will reveal a severe indictment of the RSS and its role in the murder of Mahatma. Can such untruths be allowed to pass?

Mr. Advani while claiming that “the BJP is unequivocally committed to secularism” puts forward three concepts in his definition of secularism. Let us examine each of them.

(a) “Rejection of theocracy”. This means the automatic upholding of not only democracy but also secularism. Even allowing them the untenable benefit of doubt, does the BJP today repudiate what their Guruji Golwalkar had said:

“in Hindustan exists, and must exist, the ancient Hindu nation, and nought else but the Hindu nation. All those not belonging to the national, i.e., Hindu race, religion, culture and language, naturally fall out of the pale of real national life”.

The BJP does not disown. Advani is once again hoodwinking the people and attempting to camouflage the real RSS ambition of the establishment of their concept of Hindu Rashtra.

(b) “Equality of all citizens irrespective of faith”. The BJP’s commitment to this concept can be understood only if they repudiate what Golwalkar said about all those who were not Hindus but who live in our country.

“They have no place in national life, unless they abandon their differences, adopt the religion, culture and language of the nation, and completely merge themselves in the national race. So long however as they maintain their racial religious and cultural differences, they cannot but be only foreigners”.

(c) “Full freedom of faith and worship”. Indeed ironic, coming within weeks of the wanton destruction of the Babri Masjid on this count, the BJP’s sincerity can be understood, once again, if only they are willing to repudiate what Golwalkar said about the RSS concept of Hindu Rashtra.

“The foreign races in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence the Hindu religion, must entertain no idea except the glorification of the Hindu religion and culture, i.e. of the Hindu nation, and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or they may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment – not even citizen’s rights. There is, at least should be, no other courses for them to adopt. We are an old nation, let us deal as old nations ought to and do deal with the foreign races who have chosen to live in our country”. (Emphasis added).

Advani’s subterfuge has no meaning unless the BJP clarifies completely its position on these issues that he himself has placed as the content of secularism.

Not too ingeniously Advani deliberately leaves out of his definition of secularism the all important basis of its foundation i.e.,the separation of religion from politics and the State. So long as this is not done true secularism in the sense of equal rights to all belonging to different faiths cannot be ensured. By abstaining from referring to this all important aspect, Advani is only echoing Golwalkar who had said:

“With us, every action in life, individual, social or political is a command of religion.” He continues, “Indeed politics itself becomes….a small factor to be considered and followed solely as one of the commands of religion and in accord with such commands. We in Hindusthan have been living such a religion (Hinduism).”

Religion is the private affair of every individual with his God. Unless equal rights exist for those believing in different religions or none at all, secularism cannot be upheld. It is precisely this that Advani is rejecting. Precisely for this reason the BJP continues to remain a pseudo Hindu party that criminally misuses religion for its political purposes.

Advani ‘s laboured arguments to defend the indefensible are finally given up by the time he concludes his article. The initial remorse on the destruction of the Babri Masjid gives place to a fatalistic quotation which amount to saying that whatever has happened was that ordained by Ram! Even those responsible for genocide can justify their deeds likewise.

Advani’s convoluted arguments are nothing but a feeble and a vain attempt to reestablish the BJP’s credentials as a party committed to democracy and secularism. Unable to face a possible rejection by the Indian people, on both counts, Advani ties himself up in knots. His contradictory line of argument must be seen along with the decision of the `Sants’ who have openly asked for the scrapping of the Constitution and the establishment of a Hindu Rashtra. On the other hand, other BJP leaders have indicated their desire to join a National Government! Having destroyed the basis of the entire Indian polity , they now seek to partake in the government to safeguard and protect it! Such deviousness shall not be allowed. Such perfidy shall not pass. India’s democratic and secular polity can be safeguarded only by isolating and defeating such forces.